


Whelming the Odds

by shieldmaiden19



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead kids, I promise things will work eventually, There's a whole lot of pain and suffering that needs to come first, kids dying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2020-08-11 11:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20152777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldmaiden19/pseuds/shieldmaiden19
Summary: "The Capitol is overwhelming, our odds are underwhelming... Isn't anything ever just whelming?"Young Justice-Hunger Games fusion.





	1. Wally West

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Leveraging the Odds](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/505354) by LadyArin. 

> This fic was inspired by LadyArin's Leveraging the Odds, an exploration of the Leverage characters in the Hunger Games universe. I brought in more DC characters than just the YJ team because the DC universe is sprawling and its characters got away from me. Each chapter will follow this format:  
 Reaping  
 Train  
 Mentor/Escort  
 Stylist/Crew  
 Training  
 Interview  
 Games, Part 1  
 Games, Part 2  
 Games, Part 3  
 Post Games

_Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!_

_ **66th Hunger Games ** _  
_ **Name: Wally West ** _  
_ **Age: 15 ** _  
_ **District: 5 (Energy)** _

Wally has been trying to run away for three years now. The Capitol was never a destination he considered, but he guesses it works.

He’ll still be running for his life but at least he’ll have a change of scenery when he’s doing it.

* * *

The train shoots across the Districts and Wally wishes he could match its pace just so he could get away from the hopeful eyes of his district partner. They’re in the same class at home, and Wally has never wished so strongly that he hadn’t made himself the center of the classroom. Maya and he are not friends. And if she wants to survive this all, she needs to stay the hell away from Wally. Pain follows him like lightning follows the soaring rods. He hasn’t got a chance.

* * *

Wally would be doing alright considering he’s more or less stumbling to his death if his escort ever _shut up_. He drones on in his shrill Capitol accent about the glories of the Capitol and the superiority of Capitol customs blah blah blah, and Wally just wants to strangle him.

Kent Nelson watches him twitch in his seat and smiles across the rim of his coffee cup. Wally narrows his eyes, and the oldest surviving Victor in Panem just laughs softly. He raises an eyebrow in a clear challenge, and Wally leans forward, hooked despite himself._ Get me up to speed_.

* * *

His prep team is a group of twittering terrors and it’s not until his chariot emerges that Wally really gets what he’s doing.

The roar of the crowd feels like what a tidal wave must be, and Wally feels a smile fill his face of its own accord.

_Class clown?_ Kent had asked him. And with his goofiest smile on his face and his hands doing finger guns to the biggest cheerers in the crowd, Wally starts to see how that could work for him.

* * *

Maya sticks next to him in training until he makes a point of walking away where she can’t follow. He sits with the Careers at lunch, makes them laugh, pulls out all the stops. The heartbreak in her eyes would make him stop. So he doesn’t look back at all.

* * *

Wally scrapes out an eight in the assessment, and he jogs out onto the stage for the interview with that fact held tight beneath his breastbone. He spends some time (seconds? hours?) waving to the crowd, blowing kisses, anything to get a reaction.

Caesar’s laughing as he comes to mock-drag him to the interview chairs. Wally plays the game and strains for the crowd, until he and Caesar finally collapse into their chairs to the laughter of the crowd.

They banter about adoring fans and crowd-surfing, and even Caesar’s comment about surviving long enough to have this all the time doesn’t break Wally’s stride.

He trips on his way off the stage, and he uses time he wasn’t assured to look back at the audience and hold a finger to his lips like it was a secret between him and them. He won’t let himself feel bad for 6’s girl as he exits.

* * *

The first thing he notices as he rises into the Arena is the wind. The second is the dryness of the air. The rustle of grasses, the smell of dark earth…

The platform locks into place and the world is flat as far as he can see.

The cannon sounds, and Wally is off like a shot. He runs like it was what he was made to do, and he makes it to the Cornucopia ahead of even the Careers. The first bag with clasps to keep it on his chest is his and then he’s spinning around to see the first Career barrel in. He’s tossing her a longsword like the one she favored in training, and she blinks before he’s sprinting past her back into the fray.

Survive first, worry later.

* * *

The prairie is burning.

The flames are too even, too uniform to be natural, and at this point, Wally couldn’t give less of a shit. So he does what he does best and _runs_.

It could be minutes, it could be hours before he vaults over a deep trench in the earth, stumbles, and rolls to a stop, the flames behind him flattening against an invisible barrier. He can feel their heat, but some Gamemaker command seems to prevent them from progressing any further.

He feel a sharp poke on his shoulder, and he should be scared that his Career buddy from the Cornucopia and three of her pals are staring him down but at this point he’s just resigned.

He looks at the sword and looks up at her. “How’s that working out for you?”

She glances quick at the broadsword before assessing him coolly. “Not too bad. Want in on the party, squirt?”

* * *

Wally’s always been good with numbers.

9 dead at the Cornucopia.

3 dead in the fire.

4 dead in the conflicts the fire pushed them into.

Five go after three until five become two when a broadsword claims two heads and a knife finds one back. The three become one when dehydration leaves two vulnerable. The three left become two and the two go down to one.

Wally clutches Kent’s hand as he shakes, hearing the surgeons yelling about organ failure. He finally ran fast enough.

* * *

Wally has his own house now and his parents aren’t invited. They try to move in, then try to stir up trouble when he locks them out of the house, but District 5 has food for once. No one’s backing two trash talkers over the kid who ensured their kids will eat all year.

For once in his life he lets himself be still.

He’s been running for his life for long enough. The rest of the world can go to hell for a while.


	2. Dick Grayson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for your attention and your patience. Format is, as always  
 Reaping  
 Train  
 Mentor/Escort  
 Stylist/Crew  
 Training  
 Interview  
 Games, Part 1  
 Games, Part 2  
 Games, Part 3  
 Post Games

_ **67th Hunger Games ** _  
_ **Name: Richard Grayson ** _  
_ **Age: 12 ** _  
_ **District: 3 (Technology) ** _

It takes a few seconds for Dick’s brain to reboot. He’s not ready, he’s not — They knew. They knew and Dick was going to die and Bruce was going to fall apart and, and—

No no _no no NO_.

He forces the performer’s smile he thought he’d lost in the sparkle and schmooze of the Capitol and looks to Bruce.

Both know that this is intimidation, a warning to the wealthy influencer that his children are the price he pays if he steps out of line.

And there’s nothing either of them can do. So Dick fights the tightening in his gut and plays the game.

* * *

The train flies, but it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. Bruce Wayne, Capitol citizen and favored son of the great city, does everything in style.

Dick’s companion isn’t so lucky. She seems to be struck dumb by the day’s events and is staring blankly at the window, eyes unseeing.

He and Bruce had discussed the possibilities of him being Reaped (the soundproofed section of the Capitol penthouse is useful for more than just Bruce’s rebel activity), and Bruce had had him trained in every kind of fighting style the rebels could smuggle in.

But just hours ago, he’d said, his fear clear to those who knew him, “I’ll get you whatever you need, just _stay alive_.” And he’d wrapped Dick in one of his rare bearhugs to whisper, “Please come back.”

Dick feels District 6 fly by and time slow down. Performing for the crowds? No problem. He’s been doing it since he could walk. But fighting for his life?

_We’ll see. _

* * *

The eyes of Lucius Fox twinkle with unspoken jokes and hundreds of prototypes, but Dick sees a haunting behind the twinkle, a crack in the façade from each dead kid.

He picks him anyway.

* * *

Harley Quinn might be insane, but at least she’s entertaining. Before long, Dick has her eating out of his hand with his banter and his little ‘slips’ of insecurity. Her eyes gleam, her mouth stretches into a smile too toothy to be reassuring, and she unveils the parade costume.

It’s entirely of square black sequins with glowing dots of green on each one. Dick acts duly impressed, but Just-Call-Me-Harley-Kid smirks.

The dots begin moving. Lines of computer code are written and rewritten across the beads themselves.

For the first time since his parents’ death, Dick gives his honest reaction.

Harley’s teeth gleam.

* * *

Training is a careful dance between courting and not alienating the other tributes, calculated fumbling with weapons, and weeding out the ‘friends’ who are only in it for Bruce’s money.

It’s a lot like treading water, really, if the water itself was reaching up to drag you to the bottom.

* * *

Caesar Flickerman’s interview is made for people like Dick. He charms, he flirts, he jokes, he brings out his million-watt smile, he does everything. And with the whole nation is watching, the Capitol snobs who’d spat on him for being a jumped-up District rat (“So polite! I guess genetics aren’t a factor in these things.”) now come to claim him with open arms and open wallets.

“He’s a Capitol boy!” Caesar jokes. “You’ll show those District Tributes what we’re all about, won’t you?”

The promise of pain in the District 1 tribute’s eyes makes his stomach drop.

Definitely not feeling the aster.

* * *

The podium rises, and Dick squints against the sun. _Cold weather possibly. _

He takes a deep breath, then another. _High altitude. _

He sniffs. _Rocky terrain, little plant life. _

The podium finishes its ascent.

_Mountains. _

The buzzer sounds, and Dick stops only for rope and a set of spikes. He’s got some climbing to do.

* * *

His plan had been to not kill anyone – to survive and keep surviving until everyone else was dead or dying. He’d thought he could slip between the cracks, use what skills he had to keep himself one step ahead of every other tribute.

His mistake.

With the pack thinned and the easiest targets eliminated, the boy from District 1 (Leo something) had made good on his unspoken promise and come for Dick with a vengeance. Dick runs and climbs like a mountain goat through the twisting ravines, and _still_ the boy tails him.

He hears the creak that proceeds one of the artificial rockfalls and dives forward under the overhang at the last second.

The cannon sounds instantly.

There’s blood mixed with gravel beneath him.

* * *

The Careers now pursue him with a vengeance.

Their pack is big this year – the boy from 10, the girl from 8, and the remaining five from the traditional Career districts – but their numbers and their size hamper them in ways Dick is happy to remind them of.

_Don’t be afraid to fall, Richka. Someone will always be there to catch you. _

He ignores everything except that pulsing need to survive and triggers rockslides and slings sharpened stones into their heads. He evades and attacks and evades and attacks.

_Your body is stronger than gravity, and your mind is stronger still. You could swing high enough to touch the sun if you wanted to. _

The pack was fighting a losing battle from the start.

_Kick, swing, release, my little bird. Kick, swing, release. _

Dick hears the cannon a second after the last stone leaves his sling.

* * *

The Gamemakers force the remainders together with winds strong enough to fold a man in half.

Two are swept off the cliff and land neck-first.

Dick and the last two face off at the Cornucopia, and he lets neither lay a hand on him – but it’s when they team up that the pain starts.

But even with his arm cut almost to the bone, a climbing spike to a throat and a crushing kick to the other’s head is all it takes and Dick is all alone.

* * *

Dick smiles and smiles and dies a little more with each stretch of his lips. He thought he could be Bruce, could live the lie for the promise of a better future, could _change_ things.

He’d thought Bruce’s position made him safe, that he could play the odds of one slip in the Reaping Ball and get away with it. Too bad he’d forgotten that the Capitol controlled everything, even the very fabric of their great entertainment.

Dick’s survived now, against those very odds. The only twelve-year-old Victor in Games history, and all his siblings are next in line if he messes up. So he’s to keep playing the game the Capitol started or they go in next.

He’d thought he could _do_ this.

His mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the Batfam exists in this universe - more on that later. In the meantime... I'm sorry.


	3. Kaldur'ahm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  Reaping  
 Train  
 Mentor/Escort  
 Stylist/Crew  
 Training  
 Interview  
 Games, Part 1  
 Games, Part 2  
 Games, Part 3  
 Post Games

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments!! You guys are the best. I had a couple great questions on the last chapter, so I'm sharing them with everybody to hopefully make these next chapters clearer. 
> 
> In regards to Dick's origins - my imagining of the Capitol is that it's kind of like Vegas, where everything revolves around entertaining the rich in the town, so even though Dick and his parents are District citizens in this world, their occupation as entertainers with the circus means they lived at the Capitol 11 months out of the year, reporting back to District 3 for the Reaping and the Games. But when they die (untraceable murders for "fomenting insurrection" maybe??), Capitol boy Bruce Wayne takes their son in as his ward on condition of Dick returning to District 3 for the Reaping.
> 
> In regards to the Post-Games sections - I have a lot more headcanons that I'm not including right now, both as a personal challenge to keep each section to 100-150 words and as a way of maintaining my sanity. The kind of shit the Victors go through in the Capitol is not something I'd feel comfortable or safe writing, so while I am down to share my headcanons, I won't be going deeper into that stuff until the epilogue.

_ **68th Hunger Games** _   
_ ** Name: Kaldur’ahm** _   
_ ** Age: 18** _   
_ ** District: 4 (Seafood/Marine Products)** _

Mera and the Third Terrace dojo had kept Kaldur safe for as long as possible. But against District need for a strong representative in the Games and Capitol pressure against the half-pirate bastard, she’d been fighting a losing battle.

The people of District 4 couldn’t have cared less where he came from, but in the eyes of the Capitol Kaldur’ahm should never have been born.

And now he’s going to fight for his life repaying the generosity of the only mother he’s ever known.

* * *

If he hadn’t been looking out the window, he wouldn’t have known he was moving.

The speed of the district’s fastest skipper pales in comparison to the silver train, but its movement is smooth and utterly silent. Tula’s hand squeezes his shoulder, and he covers it with his own.

He’s surprised the committee even selected her for the Games. Everyone in the District, gossiping fishwives that they all were, had been convinced she would take over for Mera after their queen retired.

But there were things you didn’t question, and your best friend going in to guard your back was one of them.

* * *

Orm Marius is not as visually repulsive as most Capitol citizens, but an hour conversation with him has Kaldur’s skin crawling for reasons he can’t explain.

It’s only when he registers Tula maneuvering, face serene, to keep him between Orm and her that Kaldur gets it.

* * *

The Opening Ceremonies is bursts of light and a wash of every variant until Kaldur can barely remember how to breathe because he’s drowning in light.

Tula quips back, “There’s a reason they’re called floodlights,” and continues waving to the crowd.

But he still aches for the silence under the waves, the muted light bent and fractured by the twisting waters above him.

Nothing here is real. Not the fabrics. Not the smiles.

And definitely not the people.

* * *

Training is redundant.

Kaldur could tie eight different knots before his third birthday, and he hasn’t fallen out of touch with his double swords so quickly as to need a lesson.

But Tula is struggling, he can tell. The face of every contestant and the people and stories behind every expression weigh on her. The faces of the youngest tributes seem to strike a physical blow, until Kaldur has to all but haul her away.

* * *

Kaldur’s 10 and Tula’s 9 follow them into their interviews like firecrackers, setting the Capitol all abuzz. The charismatic young adults who move like water itself have put the odds squarely in District 4’s corner. Tula flits and charms and Kaldur looms and works every second to exude _threat_, and the Capitol eats it up.

Their prep teams bewail the growing bags under their eyes but then shrug it off with their special brand of casual cruelty, “Who knows, maybe this year bags will be the latest look.”

* * *

The platform rises. The cannon sounds. And the Games begin.

Kaldur charges into the fray, leaving Tula to collect what she can on the outskirts. He doesn’t count the deaths – he _doesn’t_ – but sprays of blood and crooked necks are already seared into his memory.

Tula wants to cry – and he does too – but they are on camera and will be until they leave.

There is nothing for it but to run until they can run no more.

* * *

Four tributes stumble on each other in a clearing, and many things happen at once.

Tula dives in front of District 6’s girl, taking the spear meant for her heart in her own stomach.

The girl throws a knife as Tula falls, and the Career who’d thrown the spear collapses, choking to death on his own blood.

By the time Kaldur’s blinked, the little girl is long gone and Tula’s on the ground. He rushes to her, winding up his jacket to cushion her head.

“Hey, hey, take it easy, Tu’leilei,” he soothes. “We’ve got a lot of work to do to get that out of you.”

“Kal—”

“Just breathe and let me work—"

“No!” she screams, and Kaldur falls back on his ass. “I can’t win. I just—I can’t do it.” She breaks off in a cough that causes blood to dribble from her mouth and breathes back in raggedly. “I won’t—I won’t be another object for, for them to buy and sell and fondle and discard. I can’t—I _won’t_ do it.”

Her grip on his hand is like steel. “So you’re going to let me go, and you’re going to make a better world for me.” She yanks him closer. “Promise me, Kaldur’ahm. _Promise me_.”

She’s slipping fast, so he whispers, “I promise, Tul’away.”

Her hand twitches in a stuttering squeeze, and then she’s gone.

* * *

They’ll say later that Kaldur Rahm stood up from his district partner’s body a different person. Pale, cold eyes – “Like a shark,” some Capitolite will titter – and conviction behind every motion.

Six tributes left with his partner dead, so he sets himself up at the Cornucopia. “Almost like he knew what the Gamemakers had in store,” Claudius Templesmith comments in his post-Games voiceover. And right on cue, two volcanoes erupt, driving the contestants back to the center of the Arena with their heat and choking fumes. Kaldur Rahm is waiting for them.

None land more than scratches on him as he ends them quickly, brutally, and efficiently.

Lit from below by the molten rock, Kaldur rises out of the Arena, his face set.

* * *

Tula’s bright woven necklace sits heavy in his pocket, the weight of promises made bearing down like a cast iron anchor on his heart.

But an anchor protects a ship, keeping it from being knocked around the world at the sea’s fancy—a surety Kaldur’ahm himself desperately needs.

They’d talked about this under the clang of sparring in the dojo, him and Tula and Garth, what it would take to stop the Games, to regain a little bit of power from the Capitol.

Garth is back in the district coordinating the willing. And Kaldur is in the Capitol, ostensibly at a Wayne party to celebrate his victory in the Games. While the Capitolites party and puke and dance and shriek, hard-eyed Victors – one a thirteen-year-old with the eyes of an old man – gather in a hidden, sound-proofed room.

Kaldur nods to them all. “Let’s begin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that misspelling/mispronunciation of his name was deliberate. I have many feelings about ethnic names and the people that will neither try to pronounce it correctly nor allow the person to go by it because it's "too complicated." Bullshit. Make an effort.
> 
> Drop a comment here or visit me on Tumblr at shieldmaiden19.


	4. Connor Doe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  Reaping  
 Train  
 Mentor/Escort  
 Stylist/Crew  
 Training  
 Interview  
 Games, Part 1  
 Games, Part 2  
 Games, Part 3  
 Post Games

_ **69th Hunger Games** _   
_ ** Name: Connor Doe** _   
_ ** Age: 16?** _   
_ ** District: 10 (Livestock)** _

Connor’s angry at the reaping. He’s always angry but especially now.

There’s a gasp from the crowd when he passes the District’s Victors.

It’s nothing he and Clark haven’t gotten before.

(Might make things better if he would actually look Connor in the eye)

* * *

The train flies, and Connor feels every mile like it’s a pile of brush on his anger. He had so little in the group home and even less in the lab before that, but at least that little was his.

Now it flies away so Connor can kill or be killed for the world to see.

He will see that world burn before he lets it take even the breath from his lungs.

* * *

Connor felt his fingers clenching of their own accord. Ivo Merrywether has thirty seconds before Connor shuts his mouth for him. Violently.

The tiny man smiles down his nose and chuckles at the quaintness of the tributes’ ‘district manners,’ blissfully ignorant of the table creaking beneath his perfectly sculptured nose.

Lois Lane presses a hand down on Connor’s knee. He sneaks a glance at her, face serene but eyes glinting with malice, as Ivo drones on.

Huh. A mentor.

* * *

Nothing is worth the glittering flannel (though it is warm), the sparkly jeans (though they fit perfectly), or the swooping white hat.

And especially not the fluttering trio of quacks they sent to get him ready.

But Lois’s proud “Knock ‘em dead, cowboy,” might be.

* * *

Connor couldn’t fake weakness if he tried. He doesn’t have Lois’ mind or Clark’s restraint or anything but the breath in his chest and the anger in the back of his head.

So he stays quiet, looks the examiners in the eye, and pulls the head off the mannequin. _This could be you_.

He receives an eleven.

* * *

The buzzer sounds. The tributes run. A little girl dies, and Connor sees red.

His chest heaves and he’s staring at the red dripping from his hands.

The projections against the sky that night say he knocked out half the Career pack those first fifteen minutes.

He runs and runs and runs until his legs give out under him.

The red doesn’t leave his hands.

* * *

“They’ll like you,” Lois had said the night before, her face making it an apology instead of a statement. “Brutality is…it’s their language here. They love to watch it, so they’ll love you.”

She had held his face between her hands, the first and maybe only gentle touch he’d ever receive. “Don’t hold back.”

And he doesn’t.

He gets in fights, and he walks away from each one. Fast fighters can’t outlast him, and strong fighters don’t have his rage. And with every kid he kills, every neck he snaps, he finds more anger.

Connor doesn’t know a thing about himself – his birthday or even where he was born. But he knows with a bone-deep certainty that someone will pay for every awful thing he’s done. Someone will _pay_.

* * *

The finale is better and worse than the rest of his Games combined. Knives had seemed to glance off him early on, but now he feels every single slash.

It’s kind of a relief to feel again.

Connor would be willing to just give in, give up and let the world go to hell so he could finally _rest_, but that anger, that conviction that the twelve-year-old with olive skin and big brown eyes whose neck he left at a strange angle deserves an answer, a reason for her death, will not let him stop.

The blonde with the high ponytail lands a punch when he falters, and his nose goes _crack_.

And Connor smiles.

* * *

They say he’s the only tribute in the history of the games to win without a weapon.

Connor couldn’t give less of a shit.

The only things that matter now, the only things that exist really, is Lois’ hand in his, then the breath in his lungs, the anger in his belly, and the steel in her eyes that promises payment.

Nothing will ever make this right. But he’ll let his anger float away on the prairie wind before he ever stops trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things I love most about Conner across the DC multiverse is how tenacious he is. He's like a bulldog once he has something to learn or a problem to fix, and I tried to bring that out in his story here. 
> 
> And to the reviewers: Y'all are the coolest, most generous people ever. Don't ever stop being awesome :)


	5. M'gann M'orzz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  Reaping  
 Train  
 Mentor/Escort  
 Stylist/Crew  
 Training  
 Interview  
 Games, Part 1  
 Games, Part 2  
 Games, Part 3  
 Post Games

_ **70th Hunger Games** _   
_ ** Name: M’gann M’orzz** _   
_ ** Age: 18** _   
_ ** District: 8 (Textiles)** _

* * *

M’gann’s reaping is a relief to her parents. If she had eight mouths to feed and no hope of extra income, M’gann would be relieved too.

And everyone knows District 8 expects the worst and takes the trimmings of what good they can.

Doesn’t mean hugging her mother and seeing one more burden lifted from her shoulders doesn’t hurt.

* * *

M’gann sits primly, fast adjusting to Capitol posture and phrasing and fighting with every muscle in her body to not show her fear. From the gleam in her escort’s eyes, she’s succeeding.

Psimmon’s smile is wide, his cruelty casual. But he sees what he wants to see, and M’gann is going to keep it that way. He wants a contender? She can play the best contender he’s ever had.

* * *

The roar of the Capitol is different than the roar of the district. District 8 is rhythmical, the pound of the machines as steady as a heartbeat. In the Capitol, sounds are erratic, sirens are sharp, and there is _laughter_. Wild, shrill, and cutting laughter – not like the belly laughs of the kids M’gann entertains so their parents and siblings can work – but it’s laughter nonetheless.

But J’onn J’onzz’s voice breaks through the worst of her panic, and his hand on her shoulder steadies her, anchoring her to a world where survival is possible. If there is any hope left for her, it lives in him.

* * *

It takes two days in training for M’gann to stop despairing.

She knew she wasn’t strong. She wasn’t fast. She wasn’t smart.

But until J’onn pointed it out, she didn’t know she had just enough of each to make a difference. Where one Career tribute is strong and brutal, she has words and a calming influence. Where one tribute can lift a hundred pounds and punch a sandbag until it breaks, she has a lightness in her feet and a guess at their soft spots. And when one tribute can out-think, outmaneuver, and outplan her, she can run.

When all else fails, she can run.

* * *

M’gann thinks she pulls off ‘blushing rose’ quite well.

At least Caesar Flickerman and the studio audience seem to think so. She floats in her gown and smiles and blushes and plays the starlets in those ‘soaps’ her prep team has been babbling about. And when Caesar tries to downplay her place in the Games in light of her beauty and her grace, she reminds him to not judge a rose by its petals. Everyone leans in and Caesar asks for her meaning.

M’gann feeds all her hurt and all her anger into her smile and hopes it looks like cruelty. “Because, Caesar, everyone knows roses have thorns.”

* * *

Getting your hair caught in the thread machines is said to be the worst pain you can ever feel.

But M’gann thinks nothing could hurt worse than watching a girl getting her throat ripped out, her young face frozen in resignation.

But the Games is a show and they require a performance from every child that rises into the Arena.

And M’gann. . . she puts on a show.

* * *

There is no saving everyone.

That thought chokes M’gann like bile, and she wants to throw up, cry, and give up all at the same time.

But none of those are an option. So she flirts with the Careers, plays the pretty flower, does everything she must to survive for one more hour.

The demolished city they compete in might not be familiar for her allies, but M’gann is more at home in the rubble than she was those seven nights in the Capitol. And it’s a good thing or she never would have noticed the treated lumber.

Four hours after she cajoles a hulking brute of a Career to retrieve the wood and put it on the fire, the Careers are convulsing from the fumes and M’gann is long gone.

She tries to walk away with her head held high and malice in her eyes. She’s not sure she succeeds.

* * *

The finale comes down to her and another survivor. And M’gann runs.

The earthquake driving the two towards the center of the Arena topples buildings and creates craters behind them almost as fast as they can run. At some point, they’ll need to fight. But M’gann doesn’t need to be a mind reader to know neither she nor the other girl want it to come down to that.

But both have the taste of survival in their mouths, and neither are willing to step aside for the other.

The falling debris strikes closer and closer behind them, and they exchange a look. Their push of speed gets them onto steady ground as everything around their island crumbles into nothing. They breathe heavily, hands clutching their knees, wheezed prayers of thanks to whatever deities are listening.

And then…they fight.

Neither is trained, and M’gann is sure that Capitol audiences aren’t satisfied with their backstreet hair pulls, eye claws, and knee shots to the stomach. So she does the only thing she knows and puts on a show.

She screams louder than the pain she feels, reels back like she’s on the defensive, scuttles on her hands back through the rubble, and waits. She waits until the girl’s makeshift spear is raised above her belly to launch herself at the girl’s waist. They tumble back, and M’gann pushes her opponent’s head against a concrete slab again…and again…and again.

The cannon sounds, and she ascends.

* * *

District 8 is taken care of. Her family is warm and safe and fed. And M’gann is in more danger than she ever was in the Arena.

J’onn’s eyes are grave. “Can you find no other option?”

M’gann wishes tears would well up in her eyes, wishes for anything that would give her emotions a release. But her eyes stay dry and her mind won’t let her rest. “I’m sure, uncle.”

He brushes her hair out of her eyes and smiles sad and proud. His enveloping hug is as assuring as the datachip he uses it to pass to her.

The ghosts they carry will have justice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahaha it's been a while.... Thanks for your patience, y'all. I moved to another city and with being technically homeless AND unemployed, I've thrown pretty much everything else to the wayside. M'gann was the toughest of the YJ team to write, because for the longest time, I had no idea how the (arguably) strongest character in the team would win in a no-powers universe. But I figured it out in the end - let me know if you think I at least made in in the ballpark. As always, please read LadyArin's Leveraging the Odds if you haven't already, because this chapter owes a big debt to her chapter on Sophie Devereaux.
> 
> Anyway, your comments and kudos really lift me up, so thank you :) Don't ever stop being awesome.


	6. Artemis Crock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, it's been a while. Chapter as always follows this pattern:  
>Reaping  
>Train  
>Mentor/Escort  
>Stylist/Crew  
>Training  
>Interview  
>Games, Part 1  
>Games, Part 2  
>Games, Part 3  
>Post Games

**71st Hunger Games  
Name: Artemis Crock  
Age: 18  
District: 2 (Mining & Police Training)**

Artemis always knew her time was limited. You didn’t exactly have a say in your future when two Victors were your parents and a third was your sister.

Still, it stings to feel once and for all how little choice she has over her own life. But the order from the district training officers is clear – Artemis would be this year’s female volunteer.

And at least she would be going in with Cameron Mahkent at her back. Thirteen years of making mischief together would finally come in handy.

After all, District 2 sticks together until the end.

* * *

The train flies and Artemis throws knives with Cam. The nicks in the fine wood paneling form a pretty good portrait of her dad, scowl and everything.

The scolding from their escort (a mustachioed fop named Queen) is worth it to see the good-natured version of her dad’s scowl instead of the violent one he’s using now to cover his fear.

* * *

Artemis could choose either of her parents as her mentor. She could choose her sister or Cam’s dad or any of the Victors she’s known practically from the womb.

But when she makes eye contact with Dinah Lance, Artemis knows this is the woman who will get her out alive.

* * *

The designer this year isn’t half bad. Greys and blues line Artemis’ limbs like veins in the rock and spiral over her body and face until she looks like a heathen warrior of old.

She and Cam raise their fists in triumph, and the crowd goes wild.

* * *

Training is redundant for the most part. Her family was _very_ thorough.

Mostly it’s making first impressions – shouldering past the hulking Career boys, getting in the space of the dangerous girls, and trying not to throw up at the brown-eyed twelve-year-old who will need to die if she is to live. By the end of the jockeying for power, Artemis is at the head of a pack of eight and more than willing to dish out the pain to the girls – and the boys – who are unhappy with that.

* * *

Her interview is nerve-racking, but nothing she hadn’t seen coming.

“What are your adjectives?” Dinah had asked. “What is your front?”

“I’ll be cold, dangerous, and unamused,” Artemis droned, draped dramatically over the edge of her armchair.

Dinah huffed a laugh. “Just like your father. I remember his Games—and don’t use that to guess my age, young lady.”

Artemis couldn’t help but smile.

“You don’t have your father’s bulk,” Dinah continued, “so the ‘unamused’ part won’t slide. Be ready to use that sharp tongue I know to make them laugh.”

Artemis rolled her eyes. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Dinah’s gaze was amused but gently scolding. “This is the part of the Games where you can’t count on your family and your training to get you through. The audience is expecting you to be just like your family and the way you’re going to win is to match their expectations, and then flip the script.”

Artemis stands out and smiles, small and deadly for the cameras, never so relieved to be so wrong.

* * *

The platform rises, and the first thing Artemis notices is the noise – animals, wind, water, trees.

The second thing is the humidity.

_Tropical rainforest,_ she thinks. _Dying of dehydration while there’s water all around you._

The buzzer sounds, and she is off like a shot. (“You’ll get there first,” Cam had said. “Get the weapons we need and the best supplies. I’ll hold them off.”)

Artemis blocks out every kill she makes. She can break down when she leaves the arena.

* * *

Artemis knew her oldest ally had to die at some point (not by her, District 2 sticks together till the end), but Cam’s death still takes her by surprise. The branch they’re crouching on is empty one second and the next a huge black cat creature is launching at him. The force slams both tributes into the trunk and Cam’s weight pins Artemis to it, wheezing and with no way to reach her weapons.

Cam grapples with the mutt’s jaws, prying them apart to keep his throat intact. A wrench of the creature’s head tips the two of them to the edge, carrying them to the jungle floor where Cam lands, pinned.

Four of Artemis’ arrows are in the base of the mutt’s skull before either take a breath.

She makes it to Cam while he’s still breathing, and she holds his hand (even though he can’t feel it) until his tears recede and his breathing slows to a stop.

District 2 sticks together until the end.

* * *

The finale comes down to Artemis and a berserker girl from District 4. The fight drags on for hours (in broad daylight even though they began close to sundown), and both are in bad condition by the end. The fabric covering Artemis’ lower abdomen has been ripped away, and the axe slash across her guts is bleeding more than she would like. She has a mild concussion, lots of throbbing bruises, and her left forearm is fractured, likely broken, in two places.

Artemis slips, lands flat on her back, and watches in slow motion as the spear descends. Dimly she feels one of her father’s sequences take over. She rolls to the side, the spear impacting where her head was, and she springs to her feet. The berserker brings the spear in to run her through, and Artemis feels her body continue into the spin-pin-kick combination. The berserker is on the ground and the spear in her throat a breath later.

* * *

She steps off the train and squeezes her mother’s hand as she waves to the crowd. She would rather crumple into the circle of her family’s unspoken protection (they might be gruff and terse and beat each other to a pulp every other day, but in the end they’re all they’ve each got), but weakness has never been an option for Artemis Crock.

She’s made her family and her district proud. Her people will be well provided for until the next Games, and she will never want for anything. She should be proud of herself.

But Jade’s tight hold on her other hand and the way she won’t meet her eyes has Artemis worried, a fear more gnawing somehow than the fear for her own life.

Later in their family home – because why would any of them want to live in their own sprawling, echoing Victor mansions? – Jade pulls her aside to tell her she’s pregnant.

Artemis wraps her sister up, touched at the show of trust, and doesn’t ask about the father. If she knows Jade at all, it’s a Victor from another district. No civilian could keep up with Jade or understand her post-Games horrors, and she would never sleep with one of their extended family of District Victors.

Something hard settles in Artemis’ heart as she cradles Jade, the blood and brutality from her Games set like a barrier between them and the world. Neither of them had ever had a choice over even their own lives, and she resolves that the small human growing in her sister’s belly would never have to make the decisions their family has had to make.

They would have a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....yeah. I'll be honest, this is the first chapter I wrote, and it's really the center of gravity for the entire fic. And yes, that spin-pin-kick combination Artemis uses in the finale is the takedown she uses against her dad in 2x16. I only watched that episode about eighty times before I got it XD
> 
> And speaking of that long hiatus (I am no longer homeless and at least marginally employed - go me), please send lots of love and well wishes to darkhaze20 for this latest chapter. They read the whole fic and left comments on every chapter, and their excitement and generosity hotwired my brain back into writing. I'm hard at work on the epilogue, and I hope to have a solid draft before the new year and the conclusion to this epic for y'all to read before my birthday. 
> 
> Thank you all for your comments and your kudos!! It warms this jaded millenial's shriveled heart <3

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for 6+ years, but I didn't actually finish writing until a couple months ago, so... Big thanks to CaraLee (LiveAndLetRain) for their unflinching support (even when I made them cry!) - they are the freaking best. I'll be posting the chapters for the other team members in the coming weeks, so check back in if this didn't scare you off.
> 
> For those who don't know (and I am shamelessly borrowing LadyArin's HG summary here because I can't say it better), The Hunger Games is a young adult trilogy about a dystopian future North America, wherein war and general devastation has turned the continent into a single country - Panem - which is divided into twelve districts and a Capitol. Each district has its own area of specialty (District 5 is power, District 4 is fishing, District 10 is livestock, etc), and as part of its totalitarian regime, the Capitol forces each district to send two kids between the ages of 12 and 18, one male and one female chosen by lottery, as 'tributes' in a last-man-standing, fight-to-the-death televised "game show" called the Hunger Games. Previous victors serve as "mentors" to new tributes, each district has an "escort" who makes sure the tributes get where they should on time, and members of the Capitol or districts can send money toward supplies for a specific tribute during the Games.
> 
> Young Justice is an American cartoon about the sidekicks of the great DC Comics heroes - Batman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, etc - forming their own team and just generally having superpowered teen shenanigans. I haven't seen all of Season 3 yet, so for the moment I'm just drawing from the six-person team from Season 1.


End file.
